Games That Weren't^®

Yet another Edge title. The game was advertised in magazines such as CVG in 1986, and was brought to GTW’s attention thanks to Lee Theasby who kindly provided the advert scan. The game was an adventure RPG which was in the same style as the Gargoyle games from the looks of things.

The game saw a release primarily on the Spectrum platform (See WOS at http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0003975), but typically the C64 version never surfaced as promised.

A recent contributor had found that in Soft, #5, September/October 1987, pg. 8, there was news that this Spectrum-game from 1986 was said to be converted to the Commodore in 1987. Well that was the plan at least.

Pennsoft (British converting team – mispelt as Pennysoft) said that the game should have been ready in August/September 1987 but the team had some problems, which delayed the release. Furthermore, if those problems weren’t solved, the public had to wait until November or the beginning of December 1987 to see the Commodore-version. Sadly, nothing more was ever heard.

It is very likely that Pennsoft could have been converting straight from z80 code, and hence had speed issues which were hard to solve. We need to find these Pennsoft guys and find out more about what happened… but its a big lead and hopefully it will lead us to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (If it is gold that is…).

Thanks to Professor Chaos – he made the correction that Pennysoft was infact Pennsoft, and this has led to some possible leads to try and learn more about the C64 development, especially via Andrew Wright. So watch this space!

Don’t laugh, but there was infact going to be a licenced game based on the Milk Tray adverts!

It’s true, and none other than C64 Audio legend, Chris Abbott, was to be behind this game, musically at least!

At the time of first writing about the game, nothing was really known about the game itself at all… though Chris confirms that nothing was ever started with the game. The game never got past the licence agreement, and so it was cancelled early into its conception.

Retro Gamer 79 confirms the game as being planned by Superior Software (Who Chris worked for briefly) and it was actually better known as “And all because”. Reasons for scrapping were also confirmed.

Then Retro Gamer 116 had an interview with Martin Edmondson, who confirmed that he worked on the BBC micro version. He states that the game got quite a long way through before it was discovered that Superior Soft didn’t actually have an agreement in place with Cadbury. So the name got pulled first, but there were already a lot of cues inside the game which were tailored specifically to the advert which Milk Tray were running.

Ross Sillifant then found a snippet in CVG 74 in 1987, which talked about the game and gave some more details. Apparently the game was to focus on the key action parts from the adverts and carry out crazy stunts to deliver a box of chocolates. The game was to consist of 5 levels, including actions such as skiing, bike riding, powerboats etc. The final level would feature the man in black delivering the chocs to the lady waiting. It was meant to be released in January 1988, but never was sadly.

Apart from this, there is nothing more to say on this game. Case closed for now…

An interesting entry which was mentioned in Home Computer Weekly 1983 – By Anik Microsystems, a Northhampton based company.

This was advertised as follows:

"ea. cont 10 action games: Selection of standards (p-man etc) plus new amazing games."

This was it, and apparently there was two packs which could be purchased. We assume that the games were all connected and that you played them to score points on a leaderboard. We need confirmation on this, as otherwise it may well be a kind of Cascade 50 compilation.

On doing some research for Anik Microsystems, they had a fair few C64 titles that never surfaced, and even Spectrum titles. In total, only two C64 games got a release and are currently in Gamebase.

We’re currently doing what we can, but there is a long way to go with this one!

Does this exist?…

Thanks for Barry Hart, we can confirm that all the Micro Math games were released and can be found under Hayden Software at Gamebase64:

http://www.gamebase64.com/search.php?a=5&f=1&id=3111&d=18&h=0

Case closed!

I have to admit, I was surprised to see that a Miami Vice game actually went unreleased when Frank sent me the details of this one. Surely a game based on such a huge TV show could find its way onto the market? A little digging around brought forth possible reasons as to why it may not have come to fruition.

Firstly there had already been a Miami Vice game released three years earlier across the 8-bit platforms. Its not that perhaps the market was saturated already, but the fact the original game got such bad reviews, the C64 version getting a mere 30% in Zzap! Magazine. On the other hand, a successful use of the license would surely have overcome the hurdle of a stinker of a first game; a different company would have produced it after all.

Another puzzler is the fact it was planned on being released around Christmas 1989. Surely a game based on a hit TV show, released at Christmas, would be like a license to print money?

Looking at the databases on World of Spectrum, GB64 and CPC Zone, it seems that Softek weren’t exactly prolific games developers, and their only entries I could find on WoS are for games compilers and on CPC Zone. I only found one game entry. On GB64 there were relatively more, with eight entries going back to 1983, whether it was the same Softek trading in 1983 as 1989 I simply don’t know, but perhaps there was an inexperience or inability to get games onto the market, or maybe there wasn’t enough of a cash flow to see

Miami Vice to fruition after paying for the license. Certainly their last entry on GB64 is from 1988, the year before Miami Vice was due to be released suggesting they were struggling by the end of the eighties.

Nothing else was known about the game, the only reference we had is a passing mention in Zzap magazine, so we don’t even know the possible storyline or style of the game, but I’d guess that this is yet another game to fall by the wayside whilst a dying software house tried to save itself from going under.

Martin Smith dug out some info however: http://www.worldofspectrum.org /infoseekpub.cgi?regexp= ^Softek+Software+International +Ltd$ shows that Softek released quite a few Spectrum games and also owned the ACE and Edge labels. It’s very likely that they folded before getting the game released. http://hol.abime.net/search .php?N_ref_publisher=182 suggests that they did one game in 1991 but nothing else after 1989.

A Capstone advertisement was found in a US sales catalogue from 1989, so it does seem that a game was on the cards.  It is currently listed as abandonware on the PC Dos platform.

Martin/Stadium 64 then in October 2017 dug out some flyers from a sealed copy of Intracorp’s Pro Football Facts and Predications (released in 1989).  This shows that Miami Vice was supposed to be released in July 1989.

Martin suggests that the Capstone and Softek versions could be two separate editions, though my theory so far is that Softek were producing the game and Capstone to distribute in the US.   We need to get proper credits though to fully confirm.  Martin suggests that Capstone released the Tynesoft version of Superman, so it seems plausible.  Maybe even Tynesoft were involved?

More details needed, but progress being made!